National census next month

[modeller]

Does a census achieve its objective .
As an example , the question on religion last time just asked what is your religion ?
Which is fair enough and most of us would put down Cof E but in reality our churches are empty most of the time. How does our answer C of E help the government formilate any action they may need to take. Maybe " How often do you attend your place of worship ? " would paint a more accurate picture .
It's like any question, the way it is put can affect the answer .
Therfore do the results in the census give a near accurate picture of our society ?

[rov1100]

Yes this census will be a sham. How can you get a snapshot when there are over 1m illegal immigrants in the country who are unlikely to fill it out?

[R1Geezer]

it's not great in questions of religion. Perahsp they should leave that question off altogether.

[lcg]

it's traditional! we brits have been doing a good old nose for the last millenia...x

[MarkRae]

> most of us would put down Cof E

In 2001 thousands of people recorded their religion as Jedi...

[Booldawg]

dont think the government give a hoot who attends church. its just a pointless question padding out the census. the real data they're interested in is more likely to do with race, nationality, employment status etc

[New Judge]

rov has hit the nail on the head. Those not entitled to be here will not appear anywhere on the census. Men co-habiting with women who are declaring themselves "single mothers" will not appear. Fine defaulters will make sure they remain undetected. In fact anybody who wants their whereabouts kept from the authorities will not be included. Meantime the seventy year old who does not mind being counted but wants to keep details of his private life, er...private will be pursued with the full might of the law.

The census is rather like the European Convention on Human Rights. In areas where it is needed most it is useless.

[spudqueen]

I don't know what this one will be like, but I find the old ones invaluable for family history research.

[Huderon]

rov1100, given that illegal immigrants are unlikely to complete the census, how can you say there are over a million of them here ?

[Huderon]

Well one thing that the religion question will do is to give some numbers which can confirm or disprove the claims of massive immigration of people of certain religious backgrounds.

[reefer]

Huderon how will a person who goes to the mosque every week but not on your census confirm or disprove anything.

I know people who were born in this country and are white who will not be on the census.

[Huderon]

reefer - because, as imperfect as it is - and I do know the results will not give any exact figures for all kinds of things - it is the best estimate we we will get for for the total population and whatever other breakdowns can be extracted from it. And the numbers are a sight better than the regular use of more general, and occasionally inflammatory, phrases relating to immigration which are based on one's own impressions and press and other media reports. the numbers are not 100% accurate, but they do allow you to put things in proportion.

An example might be better ...

There was a youtube video called Muslim Demographics a couple of years ago (it's probably still there) which claimed that the Muslim population of the UK had risen 30-fold in 30 years. they got that figure by estimating that there were around 82,000 Muslims here some 30 years ago and that there are now about 2.5 million.

BUT there was no question about religious belief on the census till 2001. However if you take the 1981 census and use the number of people born in Pakistan and Bangladesh as the baseline, the number of Muslims in the UK was around 300,000. Using that as a start point and the estimate of 2.5 million now, you get a bit more than an 8-fold increase not a 30-fold one.

The numbers may not be totally accurate, but they are a lot better than nothing to counteract some of the codswallop that gets tossed around as fact.

[NazNomad]

Markrae mentioned Jedi, I'm sure it will get a big inclusion again.

it was 4th most popular religion at one time.

[Hymie]

On the 2001 census form, I entered my religion as ‘Jedi’ – there was a rumour going around that if 50,000+ did the same, then the UK government would have to formally ‘recognise’ the religion.

But the census information, is in part, used to determine local services that should be provided – as a result, we now have a local Jedi temple.

[NazNomad]

I did the same, Hymie.

[jake-the-peg]

I think that whatever the census results say New Judge and Rov will claim that there are millions more illegal immigrants that the census reveals.

It's great when it's impossible to prove your prejudices wrong isn't it?

[askyourgran]

Migration watch recent figures put the figure of illegals to be about 3million under the Labour party fiasco jake. http://www.migrationwatchuk.org/
Which of course makes our census pretty useless now. Immigration has brought everybodys cousins cousins marrying their cousins etc. just to get here, it may be better to devise another system.

[Huderon]

askyourgran, Migrationwatch puts the illegal immigrants figure at 1.1 million. They arrive at that figure by taking the figures from an LSE study in 1999 and then adding in their estimates (based, at least in part, on the number of transactions sending money to various countries) to the figure from LSE study.

The 3 million figure on their site is the net legal immigration figure since 1997

[Huderon]

jake-the-peg, I'm not sure I'd use the word prejudice to describe the attitude of some people round here. That word implies that they arrived at their conclusions without knowledge, thought or reason, and it's unlikely that they lack those ... but I could be wrong :-)

[modeller]

I do agree a census is more accurate than snapshots taking the country as a whole . That is if the questions themselves are completely neutral, which can be difficult to do.
I live roughly 3 miles from 3 towns and on the question of immigration snapshots are deceptive. In one town you rarely see a white face whilst in other two it's the reverse. On the other hand we have a lot of building going on in and around the other two and most of the builders are white but from eastern Europe.
The other noticeable fact, in the town that is least white the Tesco supermarket is staffed almost entirely by Asians. It is the same where I live all the shops are run by Asians.
So any snapshots taken in this area would give totally different results. On the other hand in the short term they are possibly of more value to the council when catering to local needs.

[anotheoldgit]

Apparently this time it is not mandatory to record your religion.

Regarding the fact that only a small percentage of the inhabitants will register themselves on the census form, perhaps it would be interesting to cross check the names on the census forms against other detailed recorded documents, such as benefit claimants, driving licences etc.